


The Devil's in the Details

by Pandora (paperclipbutterfly)



Series: Plot Bunnies and Rogue Foxes [11]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Crossroads Deals & Demons, Deal with a Devil, Gen, Halloween, Playing fast and loose with mortal sins, Supernatural Elements, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:46:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27257398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperclipbutterfly/pseuds/Pandora
Summary: A fire in Downtown Zootopia brings to light a disturbing burden Judy's been shouldering for nearly a decade. To what lengths did she go to make the world a better place? To what lengths will her partner go to make sure she doesn't leave it?
Relationships: Judy Hopps & Nick Wilde
Series: Plot Bunnies and Rogue Foxes [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1270664
Comments: 26
Kudos: 30





	The Devil's in the Details

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, you all know the drill by now. Yadda yadda, plot bunny invasion, blah blah blah, all ubernoner's fault. 
> 
> Oh ho ho, but this time there's a little surprise. Instead of dropping this plot bunny on my doorstep like he usually does, we _both_ wrote this little story concept out. That's right, you get two separate takes on the same premise. I'm quite partial to his version, it's ever so good, please go read it: [The Devil Came Down to Podunk](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27294853).
> 
> Oh, and mine's here, of course. I hope you enjoy it. :D

Somewhere in the back of Nick’s mind, he knows he shouldn’t be this worried. Almost ten years of riding in this cruiser with Judy at the wheel told him this. Police cruisers are sturdy armored vehicles, and though he will never say it aloud, Judy is a nimble and able driver. This car would do more damage to anything and everything on the outside of it than it would allow to happen to him, and Judy still has the kind of reflexes that would make a teenage gamer insanely jealous. There is absolutely no reason to reach for the ‘oh holy-hell’ handle.

And yet…

“Carrots, can you keep it under a hundred please?” he all but squeaks at her as she takes a particularly sharp turn at speed and he is pressed against the door.

“It’s a _fire,_ Nick,” she says, as though that’s explanation enough for practically breaking the laws of physics. “Time is of the essence.”

“I'd like my essence to be intact when we get there,” he says, and then dares to give a short half a laugh at the feeble pun. He is rewarded for it by getting thrown against his seatbelt as Judy maneuvers around the traffic in front of them. "Are you racing the ZFD or something?"

“We’re closer. We can start getting mammals out.”

Nick chuffs and prepares himself for the big bunny emotions that she is well-known for. She will charge in recklessly if he doesn’t rein her in early. Judy’s laser-focus on being among the first on site to assist is not a surprise to him; it has been her _modus operandi_ since becoming a police officer nearly a decade ago, after all. What concerns Nick now, however, is how uncharacteristically, well… _off_ Judy is today. Barely holding together, with dark stains under her eyes from a night of little or no sleep. She waved off his inquiries about the cause this morning, and has been running on a caffeine concoction of questionable potency since.

“Need I remind you that _someone_ —and when I say _someone_ you know very well who I’m talking about—is running on fumes? Which will absolutely impact your decision-making? Which is already dubious at best? You should be home sleeping, not preparing to run into a burning building.”

Judy shoots him a glare from the corner of her eye before her gaze returns back to the road again.

“I’ll have plenty of time to sleep when I’m dead,” she mutters with a dismal tone that makes Nick’s fur stand on end.

Before he can respond, she slams the brakes in front of the apartment complex. He’s thrown into his seatbelt and then bounces back against his seat. She’s out the door before he can pry his paw from the roof handle, which he eventually manages. He follows suit.

The multi-floor building is now steadily billowing black smoke from an upper floor window. A number of mammals are making their way out the open doors and the fire escape on the side of the building. They step into the general disarray as the fire engine sirens draw nearer, but it doesn’t seem that they will need to do more than direct traffic away from the area.

Judy blinks her bleary eyes at the scene. Nick can almost time the exhaustion overtaking her as he watches. Her shoulders sag and she fights a yawn, a fight which she summarily loses.

“See?” he says gently, and puts his arm around her shoulder. He points down the street at the approaching fire truck. “And there are Ol’ Smokey’s mammals now. What’s say we just back the cruiser to the cross street to block it. You can catch a few Zs and then we can—”

_CRASH!_

A window up above the one that’s been belching smoke shatters, and a horrible, unnatural scream emanates from it, though no one appears on the fire escape. The next second flames come licking out from the shattered glass. Judy’s ears shoot up and she barrels forward against the now trickle of mammals leaving.

“Hopps, hold up!” Nick yells, though to no avail. He loses sight of her just as the fire engine parks. He looks from the fire truck to the front door and back again before groaning in aggravation. He barks an order at the gaping mammals around him to get themselves across the street _now_ and launches himself in after his partner.

He takes the stairs up on all fours, practically bounding after the glimpses of the fluffy tail that is hurtling away from him at breakneck speeds. Up and up until the air begins to turn hazy with accumulating smoke. The haze becomes fog becomes a wall of gray even his eyes can’t see through. And in this fog, there is the glow of the fires climbing up the walls and crawling along the ceiling. All of the apartment doors are wide open to the hall he is zipping through, and each one is a different scene of domestic life going up in flame. A section of ceiling collapses onto the kitchen table of one, an empty playpen is a net of glowing orange in another. But there is no movement that his watering eyes can see besides that of the fire. Nick follows after the only other movement he can see. He reaches the other stairwell, and up he goes.

There isn’t as much fire on this floor yet as where they’d run through, though the smoke in his every breath burns his throat. When he turns the corner, he finds Judy standing with her gun raised, her nose twitching, eyes enormous despite the caustic air stinging them to a river of tears. An amorphous mass stands in the smoke ahead, glowing orange eyes aimed at Judy.

“Stay back!” she yells, tail twitching with agitation. “Get away from me! I’m not going and you can’t make me!”

The firefighter she’s aiming at raises his arms, yelling through his mask unintelligibly but urgently. Nick hurries behind her, reaching. “Judy, stop!”

_BANG!_

The bullet tears into the firefighter’s shoulder. He doubles over and in the accumulating smoke behind him something shifts. Slithers almost. Nick blinks and in the next instant three other firefighters surround them from behind. They scoop the fox and bunny up and whisk them out of the building.

Out in the fresh air again, they hack and cough their lungs clear of the smoke and dust they’d inhaled in the building that is quickly becoming engulfed in flame.

* * *

Chief Bogo is unwilling to entertain any explanations. He sends Nick immediately home, but Judy… Judy disappears into his office. Though her partner waits for her outside for hours, she never joins him. Eventually, he resigns himself to a walk to clear his still somewhat foggy mind. The smell of cinders is still in his nose, the curling clouds of smoke—and something else—still eddying behind his eyes. His distracted footsteps take him within a block of the fire, and he stares at the broken fourth floor window with an intensity that may have set the frame smoldering anew. Whatever happened up there, he sets himself an internal goal to get to the bottom of it.

Nick asks around when Judy isn’t at roll next morning, but no one can tell him when she got out of the meeting with Bogo, or in what condition. When she fails to reply to multiple texts and voicemails, he pursues the answers he seeks elsewhere.

The Chief’s door always looms so large, even after all these years. Nick steels himself with a deep breath and gives it a few sharp raps.

“Enter,” comes the water buffalo’s booming voice, and Nick shoulders the door open. Bogo has his desk phone cradled against his face with one hoof, the other rubbing his temple in weary frustration. He glances up and waves Nick in at the inquiring look that the fox gives him. “You’ll have to excuse me, Jethro, I have a situation I need to address. No, no, please… don’t. I’ll call you back. Good day.”

Bogo hangs up the phone and levels a sobering glare at Nick. He gulps and says, “If you’re busy—”

“When am I _not_ busy, Wilde?” He folds his hooves on his desk. “Do you know who that was?”

“From the tone, I’d say the pizza guy got your order wrong again?”

It occurs to Nick a little late that in light of recent events cracking a joke probably isn’t in his best interest. Bogo huffs so sharply in response it makes him wince and rethink all his life’s choices that led him to be standing there at that very moment.

“The reason you’re here, in six words or less.”

“I’m here because Hopps isn’t.” Nick ticks his words off on his fingers and ends with a rather limp shrug. “Why?”

The Chief gestures at the chair on the other side of his desk. “Sit.”

Nick climbed into the massive chair and did as he was ordered, sitting at attention. Bogo pointed at the phone and said, “The mammal on the other line was Fire Warden Sunbaer. I had the _pleasure_ of talking him down from the debacle at the three-alarm fire yesterday. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you about the foremost concern he was just chewing my ear off about.”

“To be fair, Chief, it took a turn for the worse a lot more quickly than—”

“Fires tend to do that, Wilde,” Bogo interrupts, words as searing hot as the very fire they’re discussing. “Which is why there are mammals equipped to handle them. Neither of you should have gone into that building, regardless how good your intentions may have been. But that’s neither here nor there. Hopps shot a first responder, and that’s not something I can just brush under the rug.”

Nick huffs. “Didn’t even get through the jacket. Guy just got scared, is all.”

“Is that your justification?” Bogo’s tone turns scolding. “’It could have been worse’?”

Nick’s ears press flat and he bites his tongue. Bogo shuffles a few papers out from one of the many piles in front of him and donned his glasses. “Though the outcome was not the worst it could have been, she still used what amounts to deadly force on someone who posed her no immediate danger. She’s been suspended pending a psych evaluation. The most recent conversation I had with her makes me pessimistic that she will pass it.”

Nick is stunned silent, eyes searching the imperfections in the desk’s surface. Suspended? _Judy_? She’d be celebrating her ten-year anniversary with the force in just a few months, another milestone in an exemplary career. The poor night’s sleep was not enough to undo her in such catastrophic fashion.

“I realize this is probably not how you wanted to begin the day,” Bogo says when Nick doesn’t offer a reply. “It’s unfortunate, but this tends to be about that time that the stress of the job starts to widen all the cracks in an officer’s armor, as it were. I’ve seen it before.”

Nick’s expression hardens. “Judy’s not a Johnson or a Wolford, Chief. It’s not the work, it’s…” The shifting smoke slithers past his mind’s eye. “…gotta be something else.”

“Then I’d love to know what it is.”

 _So would I,_ is Nick’s internal reply, though he doesn’t let those words slip from his mouth. Instead he stands up on the chair and folds his paws behind his back as he leans forward in a slight bow. “Well, thanks for answering my questions, sir. I sure appreciate it. In a completely unrelated matter, I’d like to formally request the rest of the day off.”

Bogo rolls his eyes. “Of course you would.” He waves at Nick generally and says, “Take it. I’m not losing both of you to whatever’s going on here. I expect you back all the earlier tomorrow.”

Nick gives the Chief a half-assed salute in acknowledgement before he hops to the floor. His gait is unhurried as he leaves the office and closes the door behind him. The soft click of the lock hits his ears like the sound of a pistol, and Nick sprints for the atrium with one very particular destination in mind.

* * *

Judy’s apartment in Acorn Heights is bigger and more amenable than the apartment she used to have in the Grand Pangolin Arms, but not by much. At least she has her own kitchenette and bath here, though there is still only the one room where she has her bed, a desk, and a couch to watch TV. She’s never been too fussy about where she hangs her hat at the end of the day, preferring to be out and around other mammals. She tells Nick often, “I can’t make the world a better place lying on my couch, can I?” Another thing he finds endearing about her, though he wonders now if there is more to it than that.

He gives her door a few soft knocks and waits. When the door remains closed, he breaks out the spare key from his keyring and unlocks it himself.

The inside of the apartment is gloomy but for the little sunlight that’s coming in from the window. Nick barely crosses the threshold when he hears the rustle of soft, furtive movement. A tiny squall of wind blows behind him followed by a guttural, almost primal, yell. Something wraps around his throat and squeezes.

“ _Hrrk!_ ” He flails his arms out to maintain his balance. He manages to take a knee before he winds up toppling over. “Carrots, it’s me!”

The pressure withdraws. Nick coughs and rubs his throat as he gets his feet beneath him again, turning as he does so. Just behind the door is his partner, eyes wide and nose twitching, though every inch of her face is still sporting the same bone-deep exhaustion it’s had for the past couple of days. Her one arm is up and ready to block while the other grips a paperweight as a make-shift bludgeon.

She blinks at him a few times and says, “Nick?”

“Who else, you dumb bunny?” He pulls out his tie a little as he gestures at the paperweight. “Or were you _expecting_ someone else?”

Judy gives her paw a dull glance and absently puts the paperweight down on the nearby snack table next to the couch. She nudges the door closed, her eyes now trained on the carpet.

“You should be at work,” she says.

“And so should you,” Nick counters, crossing his arms. “So let’s talk about why we find ourselves not where we should be.”

“Nothing to talk about.” She turns her back to him and trudges away to the far-left corner where her bed is, then plops down on it.

Not about to be deterred, Nick follows after her. “Bogo said you got yourself suspended.”

Silence.

“And ordered you a new psych eval.”

Judy huffs, her eyes meeting his at last. “I’m fine.”

“Fluff, you shot a firefighter.”

“I wasn’t aiming—!” She catches herself too late, already committed to defending her actions, and finishes lamely, “—at him.”

“Okay… well, if you weren’t aiming at him, then who were you aiming at? Please don’t say a resident, because that’s not better.”

Judy opens her mouth to respond, but no words come out. She closes it again and looks away from him.

Nick steps closer and crouches in front of her. “Sweetheart, listen… I want to help you but I can’t do that if I don’t know what’s going on. Please… what happened in there? Who were you trying to shoot?”

She dares a look at his face, which she finds immediately is a mistake as Nick gives her the biggest puppy eyes she’s ever seen. She smiles, then groans, then scrubs her paws over her face in aggravation.

“It was a demon.”

Nick blinks. “A… demon.”

“Yeah.” Her paws fall to her lap and she begins to kneed her fingers together. “It was there for me.”

Nick stands back up and scratches at the back of his head. “Okay… I guess a flaming building would be a good place to find one of those, you know… if they existed.” Judy shoots him a look, and he puts up his paws. “Alright, suspension of disbelief engaged. Why would you think it was there for you?”

Her glare fizzles on her face and turns immediately sheepish. She twiddles her thumbs and says, “It’s… a long story.”

Nick twirls around and immediately plops on the bed beside her. “Hey, good thing I took the afternoon off, then!”

Judy blinks at him, and then starts to twist one of her drooping ears with her paw. “Well, it starts back a ways… before we even met. The day I moved to Zootopia wasn’t the first time I’d been here. I came once before that, when I finished my Criminal Justice degree… to apply to be a police officer. I was so excited, so ready to make the world a better place, and—”

She lets the sentence hang for a moment, stiffening in the throws of the memory she’s trying to put into words. Her nose wrinkles with revulsion.

“Let me guess,” Nick says. “You got a nice metaphorical bop on the nose with a little condescension thrown in for good measure.”

Judy nods. “It didn’t even make it to the pile. I literally handed it to the HR clerk and he tore it apart right in front of me. ‘What kind of police officer would _you_ make?’ he said.”

“Oof.”

Judy lets her ear go and clenches her paws. “I didn’t even get the chance… I just got dismissed outright, without even getting to try. And I was so… angry and frustrated, I couldn’t even see straight. I got back on the train home, just simmering in all those big bunny emotions and took off running the second the train pulled into Bunnyburrow.

“I ran all the way to the county line where Deerbrook and Podunk meet Bunnyburrow. Just a dusty crossroads… had this ancient hickory tree next to it. I stopped there, just right in the middle of the intersection and just… screamed. At the sky. At whoever up there would hear me, ‘I will literally do _anything_ just to have the chance to prove I can do it.’”

She stops, shoulders trembling, ears wilted, eyes staring anywhere else but at him.

“I take it someone was there to hear you?” he ventures carefully.

She sucks in a shaky breath and nods. “I don’t know where he came from… he just popped out from behind the tree, handsome buck in a kind of country suit, dark hat. Wild eyes… I swear they were a different color every time he blinked. And he was… so kind. Really listened when I laid it all out for him, commiserated. He was the one who even told me the MII bill was being drafted… that he loved a real debate challenge, would enjoy arguing the case in favor of it for me, to put it through.”

“Uh huh.” Nick’s voice remains neutral, paws set motionless on his knees. “For a price, I imagine.”

She nods again. “I mean… I never really believed in all that kind of stuff. I just thought he was joking around, so I… kinda made a deal with him. For the MII to go through, so I could get my chance to make the world a better place and in exchange, well… you get it. And now I guess my time’s up.”

There’s quiet as Judy finally stops fidgeting. She looks up at him with such abysmal sadness on her face. “How disappointing am I, right?”

Nick stares at her with eyes unblinking for a long few seconds.

Then he bursts out laughing.

Judy’s ears rise and hot indignation overtakes the anxiety on her face. “Well, I’m glad you find this so _funny._ ”

Nick takes a deep breath, and wipes a tear from his eye. “Carrots, please don’t take this the wrong way, but sometimes you can still be such a dumb bunny.”

He wraps his arm around her shoulder. Even though she stiffens in annoyance, he holds his ground and adds a little nudge.

“You got taken for an absolute _ride_. This smarmy mammal who, by his own admission, likes to sweet talk folks into walking his way, sees a young, obviously distraught bunny by the side of the road and offers her a completely outrageous deal to make all her dreams come true. For the low, low price of one _soul_.” Judy opens her mouth to object, but Nick just holds up his paw and continues. “You got the worst kind of hustled. I bet he went home and had a good long laugh at your expense, getting in your head like that. What a genius prank, really. Either you didn’t get what you wanted and fell into further depression about it, or you _did_ and then worry about losing your _‘soul’_ —” Here he gave air quotes, just to drive the absurdity home. “—for years after the fact. You paid him in emotional turmoil, with years’ worth of dividends. You didn’t meet a demon, sweetheart. You met a _troll_.”

Judy blinked. “But that… that thing yesterday, in the fire…”

“Fluff, that floor was filled with smoke. That’s not to mention the oxygen deprivation. I’m surprised you didn’t also see pink elephants.”

Judy blinks at him a few times and then her ears droop to the sides. She pulls them over her eyes. “Oh my _God_ …”

“Whoa there, Carrots, careful!” Nick says, his voice edged with over-the-top worry as he shook her again playfully. “Don’t want to get the big guy up there even madder now that you’ve gone and _sold your soul_.”

Judy’s shoulders shake with weak, half-hearted laughter and she turns to bury her embarrassment in his chest. “I can’t believe… oh, Nick, this has bothered me for so long…”

“I’m sorry you didn’t tell me about this sooner so I could point out what a complete sucker you are.” He wraps his other arm around her in a solid embrace as the laughter turns to relieved half-sobs. Nick pats her back. “We could have had a good laugh about this years ago.”

“Yeah… what might have been, huh?” Judy murmurs into his shirt, words that immediately segue into an enormous yawn. She sniffles a little and says, “I feel like such a dumb bunny.”

“There, there.” Nick goes a little extra obnoxious with his head pets. “If it’s any consolation, you’re my dumb bunny.”

Judy laughs, and yawns again. “Ugh, to think I actually lost sleep over this…”

“Well, that’s easily remedied.” Nick inches back to the head of the mattress and fluffs the pillows up to maximum poof. He gives them a pat. “Catch a few winks for a bit.” Her nose twitches with a little leftover worry and he adds with a wink, “Don’t worry, I’ll watch out for those _pesky demons_ for you while you rest.”

Judy rolls her eyes, but acquiesces to the suggestion. She crawls over to the pillow and plops down heavily. She snuggles her head against Nick’s thigh, sleep already starting to slur her words. “What would I do without you? Thanks for setting me straight.”

“Anytime, darlin’.” It’s unclear if she hears him as the next second her breaths fall into a steady and deep rhythm. He rests a protective paw on her shoulder. “Nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

Nick waits until he’s absolutely certain she’s out, then lets his upbeat façade drop and a harsh grimace replace it. Lets all the internal emotions come bubbling to the surface. He couldn’t let her see it just then, no. Couldn’t let her see… how much she’d gotten to him.

 _You idiot rabbit,_ he rails silently at the sweetly dozing doe beside him. _Of all the lengths to go to for your dream… why’d you have to take it that far?_

And right on cue, the bright midday sunshine filtering in through the curtains has its path diverted away, casting gloomy silhouettes across the walls and floor. His grip on her shoulder tenses subtly, though not enough to disturb her slumber.

“Come to collect?”

The shadows in the corners of her room shift between breaths, between heartbeats, slinking and gathering as Nick watches. The subtle scent of sulfur accompanies the eerie sensation of being surrounded by impenetrable shade. The shapeless mass bloats and dozens of little slits open into dozens of roving eyeballs, casting their gaze down at the little gray rabbit beside him. He pulls his muzzle back, showing his teeth.

“You don’t want to do that,” he warns.

 _Payment is due_ , a voice made of many voices whispers to him.

“This one’s mine,” he manages to say through the rumbling growl in his throat, voice at the lowest possible volume lest he wake her to this ghastly scene.

 _No_ , the chorus replies, adding spitefully, _and never was._

That hits him like a sledgehammer between the memories. All this time—nearly ten years now—and this end had always been waiting for her. Nick took some comfort in his good luck, a condition he was certain he’d inherited from his quick-witted mother. Finding Judy, their partnership, their friendship… these were things he chalked up to this. All the close calls, close shaves they’d had through the years he could attribute to his absolute hutzpah and his ridiculous luck. But his good luck didn’t extend to this. This was no ordinary hustle.

“A new deal, then,” he says, though the words burn his throat.

The eyes crinkle with an airy titter. _No substitutions. No exchanges._

“Maybe not for you to authorize.” Judy stirs and he adds quickly, “Take it to your boss, won’t you? Tell him Nicholas Wilde wants an audience. To make a deal he can’t refuse.”

The tittering stops. Nick perceives the change as listening, so he doubles down; confidence would get him further than competence… and what he’s about to suggest is stunningly stupid.

“Leave this one for now, and meet me at the crossroads at sundown. Been almost ten years, right? What’s another few hours?”

The shadows loom high overhead, swell until they reach the ceiling, eyes shooting daggers in his direction… and then vanish in a blink. The darkness retreats back to the corners. The sunshine again graces her soft face, her chest still rising and falling with her calm, gentle breaths.

Nick looks down at Judy, a longstanding fondness tugging at his lips. Slowly… so slowly… he inches himself from beneath her head, sets it down gently on the pillow, and kisses her cheek. He looks back one last time from the door and says, “Goodbye, sweetheart,” before closing it silently behind him.

* * *

Nick takes the subway home. This is not a meeting he would just schlep off to. No sir, no way is he winging this. This kind of meeting is one that requires specific preparation.

First things first: power tie.

Off with the uniform and on with his typical casual Pawaiian shirt and khakis, plus a crimson tie. The best he owns. Only the best for a date with the King of Hell himself.

He checks his reflection in the full-length mirror behind his bedroom door. The mismatched style suits him well; always has. His fur coat and tail are still thick and fluffy, though the red has become speckled with gray around his muzzle and temples now. Everyone always says he looks just like his dad, but there’s no question in his mind who he really takes after. Boy, would he need every bit of her guile today.

Dressed for the occasion, Nick heads to the pantry closet. He clears away the obscenely enormous bag of rice in the far corner and digs a claw into the crack in the floorboard it was hiding. He hasn’t touched this floorboard in years, not since… well, since his own little run in with a certain Biblical figure. The day he came to a crossroads of his own. The day he bought himself out of Mr. Big’s employ with a mild insult and a skunk butt rug. There’s a little warp to the wood now, and it sticks at first as he wedges it up to reveal the heavy tin hidden beneath it.

The handle squeaks as he lifts the box up and out. He thunks it down on the kitchen table, pops the latch, and lets the top fall back. There are only two things inside: a discolored cardboard ammunition box, and a revolver.

He hefts the gun in his paw, unconsciously comparing it to his service piece as he checks over the hammer and the trigger mechanisms. He hasn’t even so much as set eyes on this thing in close to twenty years. A weapon plucked out of time, back from when he was a very different fox.

Nick eyes the cardboard box next. It’s alarmingly light in his paw, but when he gives it a shake it gives him a reassuring little rattle. He smiles as he lifts the flap and tips the box over in his other paw. A single bullet rolls out. He pockets it and the revolver, then turns to leave. That would do just fine.

He wouldn’t need more than one.

* * *

He takes the next express train out to Bunnyburrow and makes his way to the crossroads Judy had mentioned. Reception is a bit spotty out here in the stix, but it isn’t difficult to find. Where there had once been an enormous hickory tree there is now just a stump, and this is where Nick parks himself. The sun is just beginning to dip below the tree line when he sits down. He pulls the revolver from his one pocket and the bullet from the other.

Nick fingers it a moment between his paw pads, staring at it with a gaze so hot it might have set the off gunpowder within. He turns it this way and that before slipping it into the cylinder. He spins the chamber once, twice… that would be enough. The odds are still good. He cocks the hammer back, and puts the muzzle to his temple. Without hesitation, he squeezes the trigger.

_Click._

His famous good luck, as usual. His mother’s gift, always somehow evening out the odds in his favor, no matter who or what he was up against, be it cops, or mob bosses… or literal monsters. No, Nick didn’t take so much after his father. His father was a tailor, but his mother… his mother was a fiddle player.

The sound of the misfire is accompanied by the undeniable smell of brimstone and sulfur that wafts past his nose.

“ _Niiiiiiick…_ ”

He steps around from behind the stump to face Nick as he drawls his name, and the fox feels his insides turn to liquid nitrogen. A dark, pinstriped suit covers most of the amalgamation of mammal parts making up the Devil’s form. Fur as black as soot. A buck’s face with a too short snout split to reveal not the typical flat deer teeth but sharp canine fangs. Thick curving horns sprout from his forehead and sweep back into tapered points. His paws end in thick claws like a bear’s, but his feet are cloven and wherever he steps the ground sizzles, turning all that is unfortunate enough to be trampled beneath his foot to black sludge.

Eyes that change color every time he blinks.

“Hey there, Lu.” Nick dons his best devil-may-care smile. “Thanks for taking time out of your busy day for a chat with me.”

The Devil blinks ash gray and returns a grin of his own. “Been a while, Nick. What is it now? Twenty years, right?”

“I forget,” he answers, which is a bold-faced lie. It’s actually been nineteen years, two months, and seventeen days. One doesn’t just forget a brush with the Morningstar.

“I’m devastated you would find me so _forgettable_.” Another blink, amber this time. “I was intrigued by the request for an audience. What reason could you have to chew the cud with me?”

“You made a deal with a friend of mine.”

Brown. “Did I? Well, you’ll have to be a tad more specific… after all, you have many friends, don’t you?”

Nick’s pleasant expression turns impatient for a split second before he is able to recover. “Rabbit. Police officer. Big brain, bigger heart.”

Blue. “Ah, yes… ‘I just want to make the world a better place.’ Happy customer, no? Done big things for such a small mammal.”

“And now your little collector imps are knocking down her door.”

The grin widens. “Well, you know how it is. Terms and conditions, yadda yadda. Standard contract… and let’s be honest, she made out good on it. A rabbit cop in Zootopia? She should have been dead in a week.”

“And how your little toadies must have tried.” Tried and tried and tried, now that Nick thinks back to all the years he stood by her side, all the ridiculous, the outlandish, the outright improbable situations that they’d survived together. Satan smiles again and winks, one eye remaining blue now as the other turns orange. Nick presses his lips together and says, “I’ll pay the debt. Transfer it to me.”

The beast laughs. “Why should I? You’re as good as mine anyway. All those years with the Big Cartel, the things you’ve done, been witness to… you think you’re headed anywhere else?”

Nick’s inner confidence falters for just a moment, and he draws himself up to bolster his next words. “Cosmic scales have been tipping in the other direction for a while, Scratch. Check your ledger.”

The laughing ceases and the Devil twirls his paw around his wrist. A scroll appears there, which unfurls itself as he scans it. “Hmmmmm…” A short eternity passes and his smug smirk dissolves to annoyance. The scroll rolls itself back up and blinks out of existence with a snap of his fingers.

Nick leans forward. “Does that burn your haunches, for such a sure thing to just fizzle out while you weren’t looking?” The demonic eyes flash a dangerous shade of red, and Nick takes a deep breath. “But if you let Judy’s soul go… you can have mine right now.” Lucifer gives Nick a long, hard look. Nick spreads his paws wide in a gesture of invitation and adds, “A bird in the paw, willingly given, no waiting. I won’t make a fuss. I swear.”

He licks his lips hungrily, a sick, greedy green in his eyes. The crossroads suddenly becomes a very popular place to be. Imps and little lesser demons materialize around the stump, rising up from the dirt road itself, leaping about gleefully as their master prepares to harvest a new soul.

Lucifer puts out his paw. “Deal.”

Nick immediately shakes, wincing as his paw pads sizzle in the demon’s hot iron grip. Pact made, he gives the chamber another, more deliberate, spin around. Puts the muzzle to his temple, and stares at the soft pinks and purples of the twilight sky. Purple like her eyes. He smiles and closes his own, finger already tensing to the trigger. At least she’d be okay. As long as she’d be okay then that’s all that mattered. That’s worth it.

_Sorry, sweetheart._

_BANG!_

He has the chance to look upon himself in that moment after his last heartbeat. Time all but stops for this world after the bullet ends his life. It moves much differently in the realm he’s about to enter. Like approaching the event horizon of a black hole; that’s how time moves there. A second becomes an eon, a minute an eternity. Before his body even hits the ground, he’d already experience the equivalent of a thousand years’ worth of Hell’s delightful little torments. Something to really look forward to.

“Time to go,” the demon says cheerfully. He gives a short, shrill whistle and the waiting demons and imps pounce Nick at his behest. As agreed, he gives no trouble or fuss as they grab at his tail and the scruff of his neck, yank on his ears to drag him toward the swirling red portal that had opened in the middle of the crossroads.

But when they try to pull him through the hellmouth itself… they can’t. Nick bounces comically off the entrance like he’d just run headlong into a glass window.

It hurts, which is weird considering he doesn’t have a body anymore.

“…Ow,” Nick murmurs as he falls back into the dusty road. He stares at the sky dully, numb with a confused lack of understanding. A thread of light pierces the darkening sky overhead, shining directly into his face. He shields his eyes from the blinding luminescence as a soothing voice speaks to him.

_Damnation is no reward for such selfless sacrifice._

Nick feels himself being drawn up, lifting within the warm light heavenward. The realization must have dawned on Lucifer at the same moment that it dawns on him, if the increasing frequency and volume of cursing is any indication. It’s absurd and inconceivable, and yet the hellfire is getting further and further away, the light drawing nearer and nearer. He laughs, and throws an obscene paw gesture down at the hopping mad lord of eternal flames for good measure.

But Satan is nothing if not spiteful. He blazes through the pack of imps and stomps over to the newly deceased body on the hickory stump. One paw set against Nick’s temple, while the other grabs at his chest. Time that had stopped grinds back into motion, in reverse. The gunshot implodes, the bullet spiraling backward out of the fox’s head. It drops unceremoniously to the ground. The rising soul plummets from the stream of light back into the body that he had left an instant ago and the furious paws of the demon he had just so cheerfully flipped the bird.

“Slick little _hustle_ ,” Lucifer hisses, breath hot as a furnace in his face and claws digging into his neck. “You think you’ve beaten me at my own game? _Wrong_. Consider this the first round of many. _No one_ has a longer memory than I do. Get used to looking over your shoulder. I’ll come collecting for both you and your little bunny when you least expect it. _That_ you can count on.”

With eyes blazing a fiery red inferno and a final furious sneer, he snaps his fingers and the hell fiends race back through the gate. He steps through it himself, gestures dramatically, and the tear in reality zips closed once more.

Nick stares for a few seconds at the quickly darkening sky, time ticking along at a nice normal pace. He pats himself all up and down, savors each little breath he pulls into his lungs, treasures each and every beat of his heart. He’s so enamored with all the tiny little movements his body is making in its continued existence that he nearly jumps clear out of his fur when his phone buzzes in his pocket.

His shaking paw draws it out and he looks down at the smiling face of a little grey bunny. He picks up. “Hello?”

<Nick!> He nearly laughs and cries at the same time hearing Judy’s voice—a voice he was so certain just a moment ago he would never hear again—even though it’s obvious she’s about to tear into him. <I wake up and you’re gone? What gives? Where did you go?>

“I, ah…” He fumbles with all the possible explanations he might use to answer that question, and then just chuckles softly instead. “You know what, it doesn’t matter. Wasn’t anything important. Are you hungry, Carrots? We should grab something to eat together for dinner… you know, to celebrate being free of those bothersome _demons_ and all.”

<Oh, you…> She laughs. <You’re never going to let me live this down, are you?>

“Absolutely not, darlin,” he says, and begins the long trek back to the train platform as the shadows grow long around him. “Not a chance in hell.”

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Dangeresque, SpookorSpectre, Lord Kraus, and ubernoner for pre-reading this story. I appreciate your feedback while I tried something new. <3


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